Vashti Bunyan biography
Vashti Bunyan (born 1945) is an English singer-songwriter. In 1970, Bunyan released her first album, Just Another Diamond Day. The album sold very few copies, and Bunyan, discouraged, abandoned her musical career. By 2000, her album had acquired a cult following; it was re-released and Bunyan recorded more songs, initiating the second phase of her musical career after a gap lasting thirty years.
Biography
Vashti Bunyan was born in London in 1945 to John and Helen Bunyan. Although she has been said to be descended from
The Pilgrim's Progress author John Bunyan, this is a claim she has herself denied. In the early 1960s, she studied at The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford University, but was expelled for failing to turn up to classes. At 18, she travelled to New York and discovered the music of Bob Dylan through his
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album and decided to become a full-time musician. Returning to London she was discovered by Rolling Stones' manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, and, in June 1965, under his direction, she released her first single, the Jagger and Richards penned "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind" (their own version later turning up on the outtakes compilation
Metamorphosis), on Decca Records. Released using simply the name
Vashti, it was backed with her own song "I Want to Be Alone". The single and her follow-up "Train Song", released on Columbia in May 1966, produced by Canadian Peter Snell, received little attention. Her only other performance of this time to find release was her distinctive vocal on "The Coldest Night of the Year" with Twice as Much (which eventually turned up on their second and final LP,
That's All, appearing on Oldham's Immediate Records in 1968). After recording further songs for Immediate Records, which remain unreleased, and making a brief appearance in the 1967 documentary
Tonite Let's All Make Love in London, performing her song "Winter Is Blue", she decided to travel with her boyfriend Robert Lewis by horse and cart to the Hebridean Islands to join a commune planned by a friend, fellow folk singer Donovan ("...from South London up to the Hebrides. Initially to Skye but we carried on to the Outer Hebrides."). During the trip she began writing the songs that eventually became her first album,
Just Another Diamond Day.
During a break from her trip at Christmas 1968, she met Joe Boyd through a friend and he offered to record an album of her travelling songs for his Witchseason Productions. A year later Vashti returned to London and recorded her first LP with assistance from Simon Nicol and Dave Swarbrick of Fairport Convention, Robin Williamson of The Incredible String Band and string arranger Robert Kirby, today best known for his work on Nick Drake's first two albums. The album appeared on Philips Records to warm reviews in December 1970, but struggled to find an audience. Disappointed, she left the music industry and moved to The Incredible String Band's Glen Row cottages, then Ireland. Much of the ensuing 30 years were spent raising her three children and tending animals. In this time, entirely unknown to her, the original album slowly became one of the most sought-after records of its time. It has sold on eBay for as much as $2000.
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